Archive | ETF Strategy

For months, I have been discussing the likely implications of deteriorating market breadth. For instance, fewer and fewer components are holding up the Dow, the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ. Only a small number of¬†industry sectors are keeping the popular benchmarks in the plus column. Similarly, half of the stocks in the S&P 500 currently [...] Continue Reading...

According to Bloomberg data, the modest year-to-date increase in the S&P 500 is attributable to health care and retail alone. Worse yet, the two industry segments trade at a 20% premium to the market at large.¬†Paying a premium for growth is one thing. Chasing a handful of momentum stocks is another. Brokerage firm Jones Trading [...] Continue Reading...

Tens of thousands of investors read my commentary at popular financial portals. Some have been reading my articles for more than a decade. Others might have clicked on a social media “follow” link in the last month or the last last year. Ironically, few realize that I originally developed a front-n-center persona on national talk [...] Continue Reading...

At the tail end of 2014, individual investors as well as financial web site editors asked me for predictions on a variety of assets heading into¬†2015. I answered as many folks as I could. I suggested that foreign developed stocks via iShares Currency Hedged EAFE (HEFA) or Vanguard Europe Pacific (VEA) would likely outperform U.S. [...] Continue Reading...

Over the past century, the U.S. stock market typically turned down prior to the onset of a recession. You did not need to predict economic contraction; rather, you monitored the Dow and the S&P 500 because the benchmarks acted like leading indicators of bad times ahead. (Investors checked the market internals to get a sense [...] Continue Reading...

Every central banker and monetary authority understands economics. Each recognizes that debt-centric spending, interest rate repression and eye-popping additions to total government obligations will not sidestep inevitable defaults and/or worthless currencies in the future. So why has every influential central bank on the world stage – Federal Reserve, Bank of Japan, People’s Bank of China, [...] Continue Reading...

Investors have seen a great deal of volatility in U.S. treasuries over the past six months. Early in the year, the combination of recessionary data stateside as well as quantitative easing (QE) measures in Europe helped propel demand for U.S. sovereign debt. Then came the massive unwind, alongside Fed hints at upcoming rate hikes; treasury [...] Continue Reading...

Lately, I have been fielding a host of “which is worse” questions. Is it the possibility of Greece exiting the euro-zone or is it the potential for Puerto Rico to default on its debt? Is it the 25%-plus bearish retrenchment of China’s Shanghai SSE Composite or is it the likelihood of eventual rate hikes by [...] Continue Reading...

I started working at the age of 13. I wanted to be productive. I wanted to make money. Gardener, golf caddy, food deliverer, waiter, bartender, entrepreneur, researcher, analyst, writer, planner, adviser, money manager – I probably spent as much time cursing and complaining as I did whistling. Nevertheless, thirty five years of work contributed to [...] Continue Reading...

Perma-bulls on the major networks routinely gloss over the reduction in stock market breadth. For example, 60% of the Dow 30 components currently sit below long-term moving averages. When companies like Coca-Cola, Wal-Mart, DuPont, Intel and Verizon are simultaneously suffering from rally fatigue, one might anticipate an eventual breakdown in the gravity-defying direction of popular [...] Continue Reading...